UPDATE: I-85 collapse: Three arrests after major fire under Atlanta highway

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UPDATE: I-85 collapse: Three arrests after major fire under Atlanta highway

ATLANTA (CNN) — Three people were arrested Friday in connection with a huge fire that caused part of an elevated interstate running through Atlanta to collapse, the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said.

Fire department spokesman Cortez Stafford said two men and one woman were arrested.

The mysterious fire caused the collapse of part of Interstate 85 northbound Thursday evening — injuring no one — and also damaged the southbound portion, forcing the closure of all five lanes in each direction for the foreseeable future.

That left drivers in one of the nation’s most congested cities faced a jarring new reality as they were forced to game out how to get around while a section of I-85, one of the Southeast’s major north-south arteries, was blocked.

The shutdown likely sets the city up for traffic headaches for months after creating navigation hell Thursday with jams that extended five miles or more and stranded motorists for hours.

The closure comes at a sensitive time for a city accustomed to gridlock — with hordes of spring break vacationers poised to drive though the regional hub and the Atlanta Braves playing a preseason game Friday night in their new stadium northwest of the city.

“I think it’s as serious a transportation crisis as we could have,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Thursday evening.

Latest developments

• It will take “at least several months” to rebuild the collapsed and otherwise damaged portions of I-85, Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry told reporters Friday afternoon.

• Three sections of northbound I-85 — including the part that collapsed — and three sections of southbound I-85 will have to be replaced, McMurry said. That’s 350 feet of highway — nearly a football field — in each direction, he said. Demolition of these sections started Friday and will last into Monday, McMurry said.

• The cause of the fire isn’t known, McMurry said.

• The fire started in a fenced-in area under the expressway where the state stores construction materials, McMurry said. Those materials include what he first said were PVC pipes but then said they were HDPE — high-density polyethylene — pipes.

• Measuring the traffic impact with that section of I-85 closed, there has been a 50% increase on Interstate 285 that rings the city and a 25% increase in traffic on major streets near the closed area, he said.

‘Fell with a big kaboom’

The fire started Thursday evening under I-85 in northeast Atlanta, north of the highway’s split with I-75.

At first, I-85 motorists drove through the smoke, and firefighters fought the flames below. It eventually grew into a massive fireball.

“There was a 40-feet or higher wall of fire. Power lines were falling and arcing heavily and falling in the streets,” Stafford, the spokesman for Atlanta Fire Rescue, told CNN.

The elevated span of highway collapsed about 7 p.m. Thursday as crews battling the fire got out of danger’s way, fire officials said.

As concrete began falling from under the bridge, firefighters were asked to step back, Stafford said. “Not even two minutes later, the highway fell with a big ‘kaboom.’ (It) knocked our guys back.”

While the highway is normally jammed with cars around that time, there were no fatalities, Reed said, as traffic flow had been halted.

More than 220,000 cars per day are estimated to drive through that stretch of the interstate. Officials scrambled to come up with alternate routes and encouraged riders to use public transit.

Surreal scenes

Social media users posted surreal images showing motorists — before the collapse — choosing to drive into the black smoke that billowed onto the highway as the fire burned beneath them.

CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin was driving north on I-85 during the evening rush hour when he saw smoke rising from underneath the elevated highway.

Many cars on the left side of the five-lane section barreled through the thick black smoke. They disappeared into the darkness as they drove, he said.

McLaughlin slowly followed the taillights of an SUV through the smoke.

McMurry, the state transportation boss, said it wasn’t immediately clear what started the fire at the state’s construction-equipment storage area near the bridge.

Gov. Nathan Deal said Thursday that he had heard speculation it was caused by some “PVC products that caught fire.”

McMurry initially said the materials stored under the bridge were PVC pipes but later said they were HDPE — high-density polyethylene — pipes. He said the conduits are used in the “traffic management, cabling, fiber-optic and wire network.”

The material had been stored there “for some time, probably since 2006 or (2007),” McMurry said.

“We’re as eager to learn the cause of this fire as anyone,” he said.

Two fire trucks from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport south of the city rushed to the scene and sprayed foam on the fallen section of roadway and the flames.

Investigators have no evidence the fire is linked to terrorism, and an investigation is underway, the mayor said.

The Environmental Protection Agency took samples of the air and of the water in a nearby creek; results will be available in about two weeks, EPA spokesman Larry Lincoln said.

‘It’s going to take some time’

Authorities worked through the night to access the bridge and ensure the risks from the collapse are contained. Smoke still rose from the site Friday morning.

Most structural materials lose strength when subjected to high temperature, meaning the concrete could have been compromised by the heat, said Georgia Tech professor Reginald DesRoches.

He said it was too early to tell how long it would be for that part of I-85 to reopen but estimated it could be weeks or months.

“It’s going to take some time to get it repaired and to get it back in service,” the governor said, without offering a time frame for reopening.

Not business as usual

MARTA, Atlanta’s rail and bus system, will offer extended service through the weekend.

One school district, in nearby DeKalb County, canceled classes Friday. Schools in Atlanta were open, and city and state offices didn’t open until 10 a.m. Friday.

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ATLANTA (CNN) — A five-lane section of Interstate 85 collapsed during evening rush hour in the heart of Atlanta after a massive fire broke out underneath the roadway, and yet miraculously, no lives were lost.

How did that happen?

In short, quick reactions by firefighters, astute early appraisal of what the fire might do and the luck of a fire station being near the source of the blaze.

The fire began just after 6 p.m. Thursday under part of I-85 near Piedmont Road in northeast Atlanta. Less than an hour later, the blaze caused an elevated section of the northbound interstate to collapse, at about 7 p.m.

“You could almost tell what was about to happen,” said Sgt. Cortez Stafford, a spokesman for the Atlanta Fire Department.

Soon after firefighters arrived, that section of the roadway began to break apart.

“There were large chunks of concrete starting to come down,” Stafford told CNN. “I mean 200- to 300-pound chunks of concrete. We could see it dropping near our guys.”

At that point, he said, a fire department incident commander “made the call to back everyone up.”

The wall of fire rising up reached 40 feet high at times, causing power lines to fall into the streets.

Similarly, Stafford said, firefighters stopped car traffic on I-85 almost as soon as they arrived on the scene, sensing collapse of the roadway could be imminent. They could feel the amount of heat building up beneath the bridge, he said.

“My guys put a truck in the middle of the interstate and said, ‘Hey you can’t go by.’ ”

Firefighters also halted pedestrian traffic below and near the bridge.

According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, the area beneath that section of the expressway is “a secured area containing materials such as PVC piping which is a stable, non-combustible material.” Utilities use the piping to protect fiber optic and other electronic cables.

The damage is not limited to just the northbound side of I-85. State DOT officials said Friday that the southbound sections of the highway were also damaged from the fire and would need to be replaced. All told, replacing the northbound and southbound sections will take months, officials said at a press conference Friday afternoon near the site of the roadway collapse.

More than 220,000 cars are estimated to drive that stretch of I-85 every day — one of the major north-south arteries in the Southeast.